Worried about the cardiovascular side effects of anabolic steroids? Don't count on taurine...

If steroids users endanger their cardiovascular health, but nevertheless do not want to stop, they may be able to limit the damage caused by supplementing with taurine. This is the conclusion reached by Romanian physiologists at Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in an animal study published in Medicina. Sounds good, but we are convinced by no means.

Study

The Romanians experimented with 4 groups of male rats. A control group [C] was not given any drug, another group received a weekly injection of nandrolone decanoate [A], yet another group was given taurine via drinking water [T], and a fourth group of animals received injections of nandrolone decanoate and drinking water with taurine [AT].

Results
During the three months that the experiment lasted, the concentration of the worse-than-bad triglycerides in the blood of the nandrolone group increased. High concentration triglycerides promote vascular diseases, among other things. Taurine supplementation, however, prevented this rise in triglyceride levels, the figure below shows.

Administration of nandrolone decanoate also reduced the concentration of 'good cholesterol' HDL. HDL protects the blood vessels. The figure above shows that taurine tended to limit the decrease in the HDL level.

In 2016, the Romanians published another animal study, conducted in exactly the same way, in the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research. [Braz J Med Biol Res. 2016;49(6):e5116.] In that study, nandrolone decanoate raised the rats' blood pressure, but co-supplementation with taurine largely reduced this increase.

Conclusion

"In the light of the clear evidence regarding the proved safety of taurine administration in humans, our study raises the assumption that taurine could be useful in certain circumstances associating chronic high levels of circulating androgens, like endocrine disorders or anabolic steroids abuse in athletes", the Romanians write in the last paragraphs of their Medica publication.

By no means convinced
We, the ever nagging compilers of this free web magazine, are not convinced. Not so much because the results of animal studies are often not relevant to humans, but also because the Romanians have used remarkable doses.

If the rats had been humans, they would have received less than 200 milligrams of nandrolone decanoate per week. In the steroid scene of 2019, such a dose is almost homeopathic. Contemporary steroids users use grammes of anabolic steroids on a weekly basis.

As modest as the dosage nandrolone decanoate was, the dose of taurine that the researchers gave their rats was exuberant. If the rats had been humans, they would have receieved around 15 grams of taurine per day. A can of Red Bull contains one gram of taurine.